They say the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, so today we’re posing the question: Is it true that there’s no such thing as bad PR?
Ask Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen if they think the bad PR they received helped them and you might get a different answer from commercial entities such as BP or McDonalds; but all will argue that with every negative PR news story that is written about them comes the chance to tell the other side of the story, or reinvent oneself.
On every front cover of every gossip rag there’s pictures of celebrities with cellulite, plastic surgery disasters or stories of affairs and sex tapes and as consumers, we can’t get enough of the scandal. The Kardashian family has made a global empire through their hit TV show, which has shown everything from marriages, divorces, drug addictions and babies out of wedlock, which hasn’t seemed to have stopped them making a combined total of US$80 million last year.
Miley Cyrus is another celebrity that thrives on bad PR and it’s mostly because to compete with other musicians in the talent and hard work department takes too long and isn’t going to push record sales in the short term. She received 306,000 tweets per minute for her raunchy performance at the VMA’s, however she only added 100,000 more followers, meaning most were negative.
Then you have the people that make a name for themselves based purely on bad PR. Words like “notoriety” and “infamous” are synonymous with, as the French say, “Succees de Scandale”, success from scandal; because scandal attracts attention. From ancient kings, to dictators, gangsters and Mob bosses, bad PR was how they kept in control.
Let’s face it, you don’t sleep with your iPhone next to your pillow so you can log onto your Facebook or Twitter account to see pictures of your friend’s cat. You want to see who’s not in a relationship anymore, which celebrity has been caught in a compromising position and who’s airing their dirty laundry via their statuses.
We can all agree that there is such a thing as bad PR, but is more often than not spun around and flipped with the purpose of serving the subject in a positive way. But if bad PR isn’t dealt with in the right way can it can definitely ruin your reputation in the long term.
